One Flash of Light
Jean Valjean woke up angry.
He tried not to. Nothing good ever came from a day begun angry. Nothing good ever came from a day begun at all but he could not prevent that so long as he still drew breath and he knew that they would not let him go as long as he was theirs. Others might be allowed to slip away into the freedom of endless night but not him, never him, not with that strength of his. That strength that he had always been aware of but had never seemed to do him anywhere near the good it did those he labored for, still worth nothing to them even as they prized his strength.
He tried not to wake up angry, tried so hard, but he could not control the black thoughts and even blacker memories his sleeping mind conjured up and the rage that came with it. He did not always wake up angry but it had been happening more and more lately. When he went to sleep angry he always woke up angry.
He had thought he had more control over what he felt while he was awake than he did while he was asleep. And he could certainly try more while awake than asleep. But if it was too loud or too hot or too cold at night or he was in more pain than usual or he had had trouble disappearing into the shadows that day then it was so difficult not to feel the rage bubbling up within him.
And sometimes he asked himself why, exactly, he should try to control his anger. Was not anger the only reasonable reaction to a place like Toulon? He had broken a window and stolen a loaf of bread but in response he had been torn away from everything he had ever known with no way to return and no awareness of what had happened since then. He had been taken and chained and spent these past four years a slave of an unfeeling law.
He could not imagine worse suffering but if such things were possible then he knew that Toulon would soon discover it and teach it to him. He had been wrong to do what he had done and mad to think that anything would come of it (Had he been thinking? He couldn't quite remember) but it had been enough. What he had gone through already was more than enough for anything he had ever done wrong or could ever do in the future. And there was still a year left to go.
How could he not be angry? And why should he not be? He would not succumb to the wickedness that infected everyone else in this cursed place, he could not, but surely there was nothing inherently wicked in natural anger at unbearable outrage? He was not a bad person but all anyone had seen from the moment the sound of shattered glass had filled the cold winter air was a mindless, lawless beast. At his trial they had spoken as if he could not hear them but, though he had not understood everything, he was painfully present. How could that sort of dismissal and mistreatment that went on day after day and year after year, mistreatment from the world and from the society that had caused all of this misery, not enrage him?
As usual, the phantoms surrounding him offered no more answers than the occasional blow that he took for confirmation that he was right to be angry. Anger made it harder to quietly accept this treatment but he had to or the pain would be worse, he knew that well. But despite this, he felt that he was losing the ability to push the anger away. Even the shadows could only hide him from his own emotions for so long, it seemed.
Slowly, he became aware that someone was saying his name. They had not touched him, however, which was fortunate. A blow from the cudgel was immediately identifiable as being from a guard and accepted with quiet anger and a little more awareness of his surroundings. Any other touch and he reacted strongly and instinctively.
Being touched was rare and rarer still that it was a guard laying hands on him but he had always been harshly punished when it was. Sometimes he was punished when it was another convict and a guard decided to take action.
His name was said again and he looked up this time, vaguely surprised. He was not called Valjean here. He was 24601 to the guards and Jean-le-Cric or even just Le Cric to the other prisoners. Why was he being called Valjean now?
The man he was looking at was a stranger. He did not pay much attention to those not on his chain and who left him in peace but this stranger's hair had clearly just been cut and he wore his smock and chains poorly so he felt safe in taking this man for a new arrival. There had been a recent arrival, hadn't there? He seemed to recall that there was.
"Ah, finally got your attention!" the stranger exclaimed. "I almost thought I'd have to stand here all day!"
Valjean said nothing.
"Who would have thought we'd end up in a place like this?" the stranger asked, shaking his head. "And to encounter each other like this! It is unreal."
Valjean knew all about the unreality of this place in a way that this new convict could not hope to. He hoped this stranger would go away soon.
The stranger frowned. "You don't recognize me, do you?"
Still, Valjean said nothing.
This stranger seemed to take his silence as a yes. "I'm not surprised, really. It's been a few years and it took me a little while to recognize you, too. You sure look different but then I bet I do, too. I've never let my beard grow out this long nor cut my hair so sloppily, for one. Bah! They talk of lice and fleas and necessity so we cannot have proper hair but I notice they do not line up to shave us!"
Valjean did not understand how someone could possibly care about something so petty as hair and beards when there were so many more important things to care about as long as he still found himself capable of caring.
"But you said you don't recognize me," the stranger recalled though Valjean was not conscious of having said anything of the sort. "My name is Julien Fournier."
Valjean still could not recognize him.
"What are you here for?" the stranger asked.
Valjean merely blinked at him.
"No, wait, I remember. That baker, right? And the window? How much did you get? Well," he went on without giving Valjean a chance to answer, perhaps realizing that he was not going to receive an answer, "that must have been three or four years ago by now so it must be five years. Me, I stabbed a man. Mind you, he was going to kill me first but somehow when Patron-Minette is involved they don't ask too many questions."
Valjean had never heard of this Patron-Minette but did not care to hear more about them.
The stranger snapped his fingers. "Ah, right, that's what I wanted to tell you about! I actually saw your sister not too far back, maybe two weeks or so before I was arrested."
Something strange was happening to Valjean and it made it very difficult to focus on this stranger. He was not actually trembling, he thought, but it felt like he was going to. There was this brilliant light that he could almost see that blinded him for a moment. He blinked it away and turned his attention as best he could back to this stranger. He still looked completely unfamiliar and Valjean would swear that he had not seen him before but he must have if this stranger knew him and, more importantly, had word of his sister.
His sister. When was the last time he had let himself think of his sister? It was strange, perhaps, that he could think of being torn from his home but not the people he was torn from. He thought that he still remembered Faverolles and the trees and rocks and sweet misery there but it had been so long that he was no longer sure. Would he ever return? Would his family still be waiting?
His sister and the seven little children. He tried to remember the last time he had seen them. It would have been the day of or the day before his arrest as he had seen them every day back then, at least when he returned in the evenings if not before he left in the morning. He found he could not remember. Shouldn't that moment stick out in his mind? He had not known that there was anything important about their last meeting, whatever it was, at the time but after his arrest he should have known that it was the last time he would see her for a long while.
What was it? She would be tired and hungry and worried, so worried, just like she always was. She never worried about herself and had long since stopped worrying for him beyond worrying that something might happen to prevent him from working. The children, though, she never seemed to run out of energy to worry about the children. And it made sense, they were always so small and starving. There was no work to be had so she would be angry and disappointed though she would try not to show it. He would know, though, because she was right to be upset. There should have been more that he could do. He should have at least been able to keep looking for work and poaching game like he had always done instead of ending up here.
"Valjean?" the stranger asked quizzically.
"Tell me," he said quietly. There was a curious ache in his chest that he had not felt in some time. What was it? It hurt. She was alive. He hadn't been sure. That was one less crime on his conscience.
"Tell you?" the stranger repeated uncomprehendingly.
"My sister. Where did you see her? Was she doing fine? How were the children, did you see them?" Valjean demanded. "Did you speak with her?"
The stranger looked quite unbalanced by Valjean's sudden show of life. For his part, he was feeling like he had more energy and life in him than he had had since he'd gotten to this cursed place.
"I didn't speak with her, no," the stranger admitted.
Valjean felt the light dimming somewhat and lethargy creeping up on him again. He almost passively observed the flash of anger that went through him that the man had gotten his hopes up only to reveal that he knew nothing.
"It was in Paris," the stranger continued. "I talked to a portress in the area when I thought I saw Jeanne."
When was the last time he had heard her name? Jeanne, the name of their mother and so close to his own name. Jeanne.
And Paris! What was Jeanne doing in Paris? That was so far away from Faverolles. He did not know exactly how far but he had certainly never been there and hadn't known anyone who had. It was unimaginably far from Toulon. He could not help but wonder, futilely, whether this change had brought her closer or father away. It didn't matter, really. She could live in the town right outside of Toulon and she would still be too far away for him to reach.
"I know she had the ten children or something-" the stranger went on.
"Seven," Valjean murmured.
"What?"
"She has seven children," Valjean said, trying to focus properly. This was important.
"Right, seven children then," the stranger said, nodding. "But she only had the one in Paris."
Valjean felt himself growing cold. "Only…the one?"
"That was what the portress said. It doesn't have to mean anything, really, but she had the youngest one with her, the seven-year old," the stranger told him. "I think I remember that the others weren't that much older, all the children were born one after the other, so if he was in school why wouldn't the others be there too? The portress was surprised to hear that she had more children so I guess that neither Jeanne nor the child ever mentioned it."
Valjean tried to remember what the name of the youngest boy had been. It had not been that long, surely. He tried to picture him and found that he was having difficulty. He remembered a toddling child but was it the right child or was that one of his other nieces and nephews? He had watched them all reach that stage before his crime. He remembered the lack of shoes and the red hands, the white face, the dark hair. But what about the face? Did those eyes (what color were those eyes?) look up at him with pain or with love?
And his sister! He had known her his entire life. Surely those details should come easier to him. What of the other children? Was this what it was to neglect to think about people in a place like this? The shadows stole the memories away?
With effort, he turned his attention back to the stranger, hoping for more information.
When the stranger saw that he had Valjean's attention once more, he began speaking again. "Jeanne lives on a poor street Rear Saint-Sulpice, in the Rue du Gindre. I suppose that's no surprise given that she's a widow with children or at least a child but at least she has a home. Not everyone can say that."
It was a cold comfort given that he didn't know what had happened to the others. What was his name? What was his face? What were any of their faces?
"She worked at a printing office. The address, I believe, was No. 3 Rue du Sabot and she was a folder and stitcher. Dull work but it pays. Fortunately, the printing office just happened to be in the same building as a school and she sent her son there every day so at least he's getting an education. A boy like that needs all the advantages he can get."
A school. His nephew would learn how to read. It was such a strange thought. His nephew, reading! There was a school in Toulon but Valjean had never cared to learn to read himself. Perhaps reading did help in the outside world but what good would it do here in Toulon? Even if he would be released in just another year, reading struck him as a completely unnecessary luxury. He had managed just fine as a laborer without knowing how to read for so long and he could not see how being a laborer that could read would earn him any more money. And that was what he was, at heart, and always would be: a laborer. Perhaps if his nephew learned to read then he could find a way to become something else. It sounded unlikely but a child in Paris stood a better chance than a grown man who had spent five years in prison.
No, he did not care to learn to read. Not being able to do so had never hurt him in the past and it was one of the few things that hadn't.
"It was a little sad, she said. She was very tender-hearted, you see." The stranger chuckled unexpectedly. "She even insisted on making me something to eat while she was talking to me! She said that the boy wasn't allowed in the printing office because they thought he would get in the way and Jeanne had to be there at six but the school did not open until seven so he had to wait outside. She let him come inside and sit in her den when it rained. He was very good, she said, and just slept pressed up against the cat."
Valjean had never been one for imagining things but he tried very hard to see this. And there was a face. Was it the right face? He did not know. He could not know until he saw the boy again. But with that face came a name. "Theo."
The stranger looked confused. "What?"
Valjean did not smile but it was the closest he had come since he had first been arrested. The closest he had come for some time before the arrest, if he was being perfectly honest. "My nephew's name is Theo."
Now that he was certain of that and reasonably certain of what he looked like, he found the faces of the rest of his family returning as well. He only knew what they looked like when they were four years younger but children did not change so much as to be unrecognizable when they grew.
"Is that everything?" Valjean asked, repeating the addresses the stranger had given him to himself.
"It is, yes," the stranger confirmed. "It's not much, I know, but you've been here so long I thought you might want to know."
Valjean nodded. "I did."
As he was pulled back into his thoughts, he barely noticed the stranger moving away. It was only later that it occurred to him that he should have thanked him.
He knew where Jeanne and Theo were. If he had been released in a year and he went back to Faverolles then they would not have been there. Faverolles was such a long way away and Paris seemed even more distant because he knew very little about it. He was not sure that he would have made it back to Faverolles as it was and if he did then he did not know that he would have then been willing to go try to hunt down two people in such a big city. And that was if anybody knew where she had gone and was willing to tell him!
But now he knew. Now he knew exactly where to find them. If he was in Paris right now he could just go to the Rue du Gindre and find her there. She would not be home at this time but he could wait and when she got back she would find him sitting there and he could get a job in Paris and they could live together and things would be much like they were before except better because now Theo was old enough that Jeanne could work again and he was able to go to school. Jeanne had never believed that any of her children would get the chance to go but he had always known that she secretly wanted them to. She would have taken advantage of the school if she were in prison. But she would never be in prison as she was always smarter than him and would never have tried to beat society.
But where were the others? How could six children just disappear like that and why had Jeanne never mentioned them? It was only four years! What had happened? He could not see Jeanne abandoning any of them, not when she would always starve herself to give her children just a few extra mouthfuls of sustenance. But with him gone and the winter being as hard as it had and literally no food and no ability to work let alone jobs to be had…It had been bad when he was still there finding irregular work and shooting animals where he could. How much worse was it when he was gone and when everyone knew what he had done? How bad would it have had to get before Jeanne would wish them luck and leave them to make their own way in the world?
Or had they run off? Had they known just how poor and desperately wretched they were and how their mother couldn't afford any of them and just took to the streets themselves? Did any of them know anything about living on the streets? They had barely left the house back when he had still been free for there had been no money for shoes. He and Jeanne had had old, cracked shoes but that was it. The shoes that the children had had before Henri had died had had to be sold early on. The thought of those poor little children shivering on the street all night, like Theo shivered on the street for an hour in the morning, burned him.
Had their mother managed to find them some sort of employment or given them to the church or something? The oldest few were old enough to do some work, especially in a place with as many people as Paris. How long after he had been arrested had that little family been fractured yet further? They were already on the verge of destruction when he had stopped in front of that bakery and that shattering glass…Had they even lasted until he had made it for Toulon and last wept for them?
Were they even alive? It was very difficult to die of hunger, he knew, and that was why he should have waited before trying to steal that loaf of bread. But they had gone without for so long and were never actually fed enough. How long could they continue to go without food until they did finally die? Perhaps he could see one or two of them dying but all six? How was that even possible? He did not know and suddenly he found that he needed to know.
He needed to go to Jeanne and do whatever he could to try and make this better and to just find out what had happened to them. He did not think that anything, even the knowledge that his failure had left six of his tiny nieces and nephews to die in agony, was worse than not knowing and having to imagine all sorts of horrible fates that could have befallen them.
It had not occurred to him to try and escape before. It had taken him months to accept his situation and even now it often felt like a dream the guard's blows could not wake him from. Where would he go? What would he do? He had no idea what to do once he had left Toulon and the guards would surely hunt him down. He had seen them bringing back prisoners who had failed to escape and their punishments were brutal.
It was only a year but suddenly he could not wait a moment longer. He was not so desperate as to slip out of his chains and start running the moment he was outside but given a few days he might be.
He did not know much about escaping but he did know those who did and he spoke to them. When the time came, less than a week after being approached by that stranger, they helped him flee.
Running until his side felt like it was on fire was a strange sort of blessing. He hadn't run since the night his life had ended and he had been caught then. He couldn't be caught this time. He vaguely knew the way to go but the specifics did not matter until he was closer to Paris.
He had felt himself hunted since before he had even escaped and it did lessen his joy at finally finally being outside again and unchained but it was worth every second that he did not have to spend in that nightmare. If this was not freedom then it was the closest that he could remember and the thing about being hunted was that it meant that at least he was alive!
The light shone so brilliantly that he could almost forget the shadows but they did not forget him and this was to be the last light to grace his life for too many years.
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